Bright Nwaru Group

Bright Nwaru, PhD, Associate Senior Lecturer in Molecular Medicine oriented towards respiratory diseases, investigates the distribution, risk factors, and causes of allergy and asthma in the population and seeks to advance potential preventive approaches for these conditions.

Dr Nwaru is an epidemiologist and much of his research until date has focused on understanding the role of early life environmental, behavioral, and genetic factors and interactions between these in the development of allergy and asthma in children. Within this context, using international birth cohorts, his research demonstrated the importance of prenatal and early life diet in the development of childhood allergy and asthma.

One of his current research programs focuses on deciphering the role of sex steroid hormones in asthma in women. Although endogenous and exogenous sex steroids have been suspected to largely explain observed gender-related differences in asthma for many decades, a putative answer has so far been elusive. By assembling cross-country population cohorts and using a combination of epidemiological and mechanistic approaches, his group collaborates with national and international experts in the field to provide a definitive answer on the role of sex steroids in asthma in women. The research also seeks to understand whether sex steroid-based therapy can be developed for the management of asthma in women.

Part of the group’s research program is to understand the potential mechanisms and predictors of asthma-COPD overlap disease phenotype. The group also capitalizes on the various population routine data (generated from clinical encounters, administrative and social care, and behavioral data) to better understand the network of factors influencing allergy and asthma in the population. Dr Nwaru is a strong proponent of evidence-base science and in collaboration with national and international colleagues continuously undertakes important evidence syntheses to aid understanding of scientific findings and healthcare decisions. Nwaru is an adjunct professor of epidemiology at the University of Tampere, Finland, and an honorary fellow at the University of Edinburgh, UK.

International Collaborations

Internationally, Dr Nwaru collaborates with colleagues from the University of Edinburgh, Kings College London, and from the Universities of Helsinki and Tampere. Nationally he collaborates with colleagues from the University of Gothenburg and Karolinska Institute.